Title: The Angel of Death (14/?)
Author: Emma
Characters: Jack Harkness, others
Rating: Starts PG. That's all I know.
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Summary: Far in the future, Jack meets someone he never expected to see again
Author's Note: I am sorry this has taken so long. It's been a very stressful end to this year, from being "promoted" at work to a job I have no inkling how to do to a severe illness in the family that just turned December into a gigantic mess. Here's a prayer for 2011!

Part Thirteen is here. Links to previous chapters are here

“What are you thinking about?”

Jack looked over his shoulder. “I wish I could make sense of it.” He turned back to the vast expanse of twisting, flaring, erupting time-stuff in front of him. “I rode through that to the end of the Universe, clinging to the outside of a TARDIS.”

“I know. Tosh let me see some of your files.” Ianto stepped closer, standing close enough to Jack that Jack could feel Ianto’s breath on his neck. “What was it like?”

Jack chuckled. “Hot. Not in the flesh, though.” He tapped his forehead. “It felt like I was being scoured from the inside. The odd thing is, I forgot it almost immediately. There we were, at the absolute end of time, running for our lives, as usual. And then there was the Master...” He shrugged. “Too busy trying to hang on to my sanity.”

“That sounds logical. And now?”

“I don’t know.” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “I haven’t seen the Doctor in centuries. For all I know he’s dead in linear time. He always did take chances, and he didn’t have many lives left the last time I met him.” He turned abruptly to face Ianto. “Would you think less of me if I told you it all scares me stupid?”

Ianto ghosted his fingertips along Jack’s jaw. “I would think less of you if it didn’t. If the Doctor is dead, so is his TARDIS, and you have become… I was going to say the last of the Time Lords, but that’s not quite it. You’d be the Lonely God, the last of the Great Legends, and you can see the human Jack bleeding away at the edges until only the legend remains.” He wrapped his hand around Jack’s neck and pulled gently until their foreheads rested together. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s what we’re here for.”

“We?”

“Me. Ai-Shi. Everyone who has loved you and will love you. Your legions of grandsons and granddaughters. We’re your grounding mechanism, Jack. We’ll keep you human.”

Jack made an odd little sound as he wrapped his arms around Ianto's waist and hung on, burying his face in the crook of Ianto's neck. Tears seeped through his lashes. He felt Ianto's arms come around him and Ianto's hands stroking up and down his back, soothing, calming. Suddenly a memory rose out of the past, of Ianto holding him in exactly the same way, days after Tosh's and Owen's deaths, when he had finally allowed himself to grieve. He nearly said something outloud, but caught himself in time. Slowly, reluctantly, he pulled away.

“Thank you. I'll take you up on that, after this is all over.”

“Is there going to be an after, you think?”

“Yes.” He grimaced. “I sound so sure, don't I? I was sure... never mind. Yes.” He took Ianto's hand and pressed his lips into the palm. “Somehow. Yes.”

“I'll hold you to it. Now, what do we do next?”

Jack turned back to the control column. “Tosh, can we start the tracer program from here?”

“Not very well. Hold on.” Jack felt a slight wrenching and suddenly the screen was filled with normal space again. “The asteroid field is heavily populated here, and I've shut off all the secondary systems. Let's see what's out there... yes... there is is. A massive phase-field distortion. I can track it.”

“Elliptical path, Tosh.”

“Already plotted. I'm also projecting a chimera. If anyone looks, we're just another hunk of rock floating about.”

“Let's go, then.” He turned back to Ianto. “Why don't you go shower and get some sleep?”

“I don't need much sleep. You go ahead. I can...”

“Why don't you both go shower? No offense, but you both stink.” Tosh said firmly. “I have it under control.”

Ianto chuckled. “Come on, Jack, before she starts spraying the room with lavender.”

“Don't be silly. Ylang-ylang. Go!”

Jack saluted in the general direction of the central column and followed a chuckling Ianto to his quarters and into the shower, barely taking time to strip off his sweat-soaked clothes. He hissed when the water hit him; Ianto liked it hot enough to scald off the first layer of skin. His lover grinned at him and held up a flannel and soap in offering, one eyebrow up in the old familiar teasing. Jack's mouth dried up, and all he could do was nod.

Ianto turned soaping up the flannel into obscene performance art. Well, Jack thought, trying to be fair, perhaps it was all in Jack's own dirty mind. Considering both propositions for a second, he decided it really didn't matter one way or the other. Smiling, he splayed his legs as much as he could and raised his hands overhead, wordlessly granting his lover complete access to his body.

“Your back first. Turn around.”

Jack obeyed, closing his eyes and waiting. The first touch of the flannel against his neck made him moan with pleasure. Ianto's soapy hands made circles across his shoulders and up his arms, then back down. Every inch of his skin down to his ankles was scrubbed gently and thoroughly, every muscle massaged, then sluiced down. It wasn't done in a particularly erotic way, but there was a subtle possession in the way Ianto's hands touched his body that aroused him more than an open invitation.

“Turn around.”

Agreeably, Jack followed instructions. The sight that met his eyes made him nearly swallow his tongue. Ianto was sitting back on his heels, knees apart, hands still holding the soap and flannel. His head was bent, displaying his neck in total animal submission. Memories slammed through him of his Ianto in a similar position; once he had shed his inhibitions, Ianto had been hungry for all sorts of experiences and Jack had indulged him.

“Ianto...”

It was barely a whisper, but Ianto's head came up. Their eyes met and Jack could see the amused gleam hiding behind the lashes, and it was so much the same and yet so different that he could have wept. Instead he watched as the soapy flannel was brushed across his toes, ankles, up his legs to his groin. There it became a whisper of rough wool over delicate skin until Jack was shivering with need, then it moved up, across the flat plane of Jack's stomach to his nipples, and up to his face. And then finally, finally, it was tossed aside and Jack was backed against the cool tile and his mouth taken in a wild kiss. He gripped Ianto's arse and pulled him tight, skin to skin, pressed together as they rocked, and there was no time, no more time, and Jack found himself coming, out of control, like a teenager with his first hard cock in his hand.

“God!” Ianto gasped, tearing his mouth away from Jack's and dropping his head to Jack's shoulder. “That was... oh God, that was...”

Jack chuckled. “Yeah. It sure was.” He grabbed a clean flannel. “Time to shower for real. And then... we can go to bed and do this properly.”

“I like improperly,” Ianto mock-pouted. “I like improperly a lot!”

“Improper is fun,” Jack agreed, wrapping his arms around Ianto's waist, “but properly,” he let his tongue rasp against the tendons in Ianto's neck, moving slowly upwards to nip at the chin and jawline, “in a bed, making it last for hours,” he nibbled at Ianto's lower lip, making his breath hitch, “that would be perfection.”

Ianto stared at him dazedly for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Right. Fine. Clean up.”

Jack couldn't remember ever taking a faster shower. In less than fifteen minutes he found himself flat on his back, Ianto sprawled on top of him, pressing him down into the mattress. He bided his time until Ianto was slightly off balance and then threw his legs around Ianto's waist and flipped them over. “You are a hungry, hungry boy tonight, aren't you?”

“More like grabbing the opportunity with both hands while we have the chance.” Ianto licked at the hollow at the base of Jack's neck. “For once it's quiet... Jack? What's wrong?”

“What you just said.” Jack rolled away and sat up. “It's quiet. Too quiet.”

“I don't understand.”

“You don't keep your Tech Net implant active all the time, do you?”

Ianto tapped the back of his ear. “No, I don't. The constant background noise was giving me a headache...” He tapped behind his ear again. “There's nothing there! That's impossible, isn't it?”

Jack nodded. “Too quiet. Tosh?”

“Yes, Jack?”

“Tech Net seems to be down.”

“That's impossible, Jack. It would... Jack? We're being blocked. In fact... Would you two dial down the audio on your implants? I want to try something.”

Even with the audio down, both men were rattled by the sudden metallic whine that assaulted their eardrums. That was followed by what sounded like an explosion, and then noise cascaded into their eardrums.

“Jack, someone at Tech Central is broadcasting false data.” Tosh sounded uncharacteristically agitated. “Right over my sensory inputs. We've been following a false trail!”